1st Edition
Global Commerce in the Age of Enlightenment Theories, Practices, and Institutions in the Eighteenth Century
Combining contextual, institutional, and global perspectives, this book evaluates the impact of international trade on eighteenth-century economic thought. It meticulously delineates how economic ideas and institutions flowed between North and South Europe and across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans during the Age of Enlightenment.
Global Commerce in the Age of Enlightenment carefully explores contemporary debates about economic institutions, which were a crucial element in the race for controlling international trade. Eighteenth-century thinkers devoted much attention to the relative merits of existing institutions, such as free ports, grasped the dangers of economic dependence, and appraised emerging conceptions of property rights. The author draws on an impressive range of sources, including pamphlets and travel accounts, and work from lesser-known figures such as Pierre Poivre and Ange Goudar.
This volume will be valuable reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, economic history, political economy, the history of ideas, and global history.
Introduction: On global commerce: topoi, utopias, and the existential production of knowledge
Part I
"The granary of the universe"
Travelogues, observations, evidence, and a global history of property
Chapter 1.
Pierre Poivre: A microglobal life
Chapter 2.
Eighteenth-century travel accounts: Platforms for economic observations.
Chapter 3.
Feudal Laws: Liberties for a few.
Chapter 4.
An empirical turn: Evidence and the attack on the economists.
Chapter 5.
Property rights: A global history.
Part II
"A universal warehouse of workforce"
Re-industrialisation, delocalisation, de-urbanisation, and the propagation of economic maxims
Chapter 6.
Ange Goudar: Does the republic of economists need transgressive authors?
Chapter 7.
The will to know: The praxis of economic maxims
Chapter 8.
The will to write: North and South Europe in transnational perspective
Chapter 9.
Industry’s geometry and geography
Chapter 10.
Materialising ideas: A chamber of Agriculture
Part III
"A universal intercourse of traffic as is desired"
Free ports, fairs, and institutional evolution in a global perspective
Chapter 11.
Free ports: the idol of all economists.
Chapter 12.
Lasting and unlasting markets: From Medieval fairs to free ports.
Chapter 13.
Institutional diversity: Free ports, the Navigation Act, and the Drawback system.
Chapter 14.
A Mediterranean silk road: Venice, Genoa, and Piedmont.
Chapter 15.
Tyre and Carthage: Failed projects and new glocal fairs
Conclusion
Bibliography
Biography
J. Bohorquez is a researcher at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociais, University of Lisbon, Portugal. He was a fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.
